Penn State football had a successful regular season this year as they finished 10-2, but they were tasked with replacing both their offensive and defensive coordinators. The defense was certainly the strength of this Nittany Lions team, and because of that, their coordinators needed replacing for different reasons. Offensive coordinator Mike Yurich was fired after the Nittany Lions had a poor performance against Michigan, and defensive coordinator Manny Diaz is leaving Penn State for the head coaching job at Duke.
Andy Kotelnicki will be the new offensive coordinator for Penn State. He is coming over from Kansas football, and a big reason for the move is because of the fact that he grew up a fan of the Nittany Lions.
“I’m five, or six, or seven years old, and my mom brings home a football helmet,” Kotelnicki said, according to an article from Basic Blues Nation. “I know what football is; my family weren’t college football players by any means. We didn’t grow up cheering for whoever. But there’s this white helmet with a blue stripe. Sometime in the next year, I see, either on TV or in the paper, that there’s a college football team wearing that same helmet. It’s Penn State. Didn’t know anything about it, but I immediately became a Penn State fan because they had the same helmet that I would put on running into trees and things like that [as a kid]. So, if you were to talk to my high school buddies or even small college buddies, they would tell you that I was a Penn State fan growing up. I remember, of course, I played O-line, but I remember thinking that I was Curtis Enis running around in the mid-’90s, even though that was certainly not my future.”
Getting this job is a full circle moment for Andy Kotelnicki. He grew up a Penn State football fan, and he now gets to coach the Nittany Lions. This means a lot to him.
“So I’m sharing that story with you so that you understand that I’m not taking this opportunity lightly,” Kotelnicki continued. “It’s a big-time honor for me to sit up here today and get a chance to interact with this fanbase, this family. It’s something that if you asked me when I started coaching college football where I wanted to coach, I would’ve said this school.”
Kotelnicki is thrilled to have this job, and he has his work cut out for him. The offense was what held Penn State back this year, and it will be his job to fix that. So far, it sounds like things are going well for him.
“I think it’s been really good,” James Franklin said in regards to Kotelnicki’s transition. “I love this model of being able to bring guys in and allow them to kind of get a feel for the culture and the program and the structure and the organization and the personnel and all those types of things and then be able to hit the ground running.”
Penn State football will take on Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl to conclude their season on December 30th. Kotelnicki won't call plays in that game, but he will work with the team during bowl prep.
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